


Broken Music

by Delphinapterus



Category: Gilmore Girls, Wishbone
Genre: Coming of Age, Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-17
Updated: 2007-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphinapterus/pseuds/Delphinapterus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe never thought a man could be beautiful until he saw Michael.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Music

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after _Wishbone_ 01-34 “Viva Wishbone!” and _Gilmore Girls_ 05-18 “To Live and Let Diorama.”
> 
>  **Warning:** homophobia

The music box is broken and filled with little brass pieces. Joe sees only a mess but Michael says that they can try and fix it. It will make his Mom happy and Joe wants to do that. So he brings the box with him and Michael pulls out little tools and magnifying glasses. Joe flicks the teeth of the comb. They make a soft plink but it doesn’t sound like music. How that flat piece of metal will ever make any music Joe doesn’t know but Michael is confident that it will.

He is older than Joe but he’s kind and doesn’t treat Joe like a child. Joe likes him better for it. Watching Michael’s fingers carefully twisting the tiny jeweler’s screw drivers Joe wonders if his fingers will ever be that long and graceful. It’s the first time he’s thought of hands as graceful. The afternoon light is slanting over Michael’s shoulder making his skin glow gold as he shows Joe how to insert the studded drum into the slot. Afterwards when every thing is done Michael smiles at him and says “Let’s try it out.”

Joe carefully winds the key and listens to the keys hitting the little studs.

Michael grins, bright and happy, “It’s playing Beethoven.”

In that moment, with the sun turning him gold and his eyes sparkling, he looks beautiful.

Joe never thought a man could be beautiful until he saw Michael. Later he asks David and Samantha if they think a guy can be beautiful. They both look at him like he’s gone mental.

“Am I going to be beautiful when I grow up?”

“No, men are handsome. They aren’t beautiful Joe. You’ll be handsome.” Mom’s voice is tight and her smile isn’t a real smile.

Joe feels sorry for saying anything. He knows she’s wrong though because he’s seen Michael. He learns his lesson and doesn’t talk about it anymore but every time he sees Michael he knows he’s right – guys can be beautiful. Sometimes he studies his face in the mirror looking for hints that he’s going to be beautiful like Michael.

Michael lets Joe hang around with him and they drink cherry coke. The bubbles are snapping on his tongue while Michael shows him how to fix an alarm clock. Later when Joe feels too lazy to move he lays against the soundboard of Michael’s piano and lets the vibrations move through his body while Michael plays Beethoven for him. His fingers aren’t slim like Michael’s and he contents himself with listening instead of trying to get his clumsy fingers to dance like Michael’s do.

It’s Damont who asks him why he’s always hanging around with a fag. Joe ignores him because there isn’t really any way to get Damont to back off. He wonders who Damont means. It isn’t until later, when he’s taking Wishbone for a walk, that he realizes Damont meant Michael. It makes him feel sick and hot to think that Michael might not be normal. Oakdale doesn’t have those sorts of people, they live in big cities where people party all night and don’t leave jack-o’-lanterns on their front steps. City people don’t let themselves into houses when the door is open. Joe doesn’t know how he’s going to ask Michael if he’s not right. Wishbone pushes against his hand so Joe pets him. He knows his dog just wants to make him feel better.

“What do I do Wishbone?”

But Wishbone has no answer for him except to lick his hand.

Michael is in the middle of taking apart a VCR when Joe gets to his house. The sun is turning him golden again and Joe is reminded of the first time he realized Michael was beautiful. Wishbone is nosing around in the corner.

“Hey Joe. Want to help?”

He doesn’t know what to say; his skin feels tight and stretched too thin. Michael’s smile vanished and he frowns.

“What’s wrong Joe?”

“Damont said . . .” his voice cracks and he feels himself flush.

It’s embarrassing when that happens but Mom says he’ll grow out of it. He clears his throat and tries again even though his mouth is desert dry.

“Are you a fag?”

The last is whispered so low that he’s sure Michael won’t be able to tell his voice is cracking again. Michael’s lips thin into a hard line and suddenly Joe’s afraid he’s going to lose his friend.

“That’s not a very nice word.”

Michael isn’t denying it, isn’t saying no, and Joe feels like he’s going to throw up. Michael is supposed to laugh and say of course not. He still looks beautiful but now it is beauty and sorrow like the statue of the blessed Virgin in her blue robes.

“Are you?”

The question sounds angrier than he meant it and Michael flinches. Wishbone yips and runs over to rub against Michael’s leg. The spool of the VCR glints in the sun throwing bright spots of light onto his hair to make it flare yellow like the stain glass halos on the church windows. Michael reaches down automatically to pet Wishbone. Wishbone likes him, how can his dog like a fag?

“So what if I am. I’m still me Joe.”

He doesn’t know what to say so he turns around and leaves pretending not to see the hurt on Michael’s face. Wishbone doesn’t come and once he’s outside he has to shout for his dog.

“Traitor” he says when Wishbone finally appears.

Wishbone looks reproachfully at him and runs off down the street. Joe knows there’s no way he’ll catch him so he lets him go and wanders off on his own trying not to think about Michael.

He finds Wanda decorating pumpkin shaped cookies with violently orange icing.

“Here you put the smiles on.” She says handing a bowl filled with purple candied lips.

They work in silence and Joe likes that she doesn’t ask him to share his problems like Mom would.

“Michael’s a fag.”

It’s such a relief to have it out in the open, to not be holding the secret inside anymore. Wanda shrugs.

“So? Is that why you look so miserable?”

“Wishbone likes him.”

“Oh,” she says the knife scratching against the cookie’s hard top.

He concentrates on putting the smile on just right. The left corner is a little high so he pushes it down gently, the orange icing sticks to his finger and he licks it off like Michael licked peach juice from his fingers. Joe pulls his finger away from his mouth like he’s been burnt, he can’t act like Michael, he isn’t one of those, he isn’t a fag.

“Joe that’s just Michael’s choice, it shouldn’t stop you from being friends.”

Wanda comes from San Francisco where things are more laid back.

“He’s a nice boy and you’re friends. You’ll always feel bad about this if you let it ruin your friendship.”

She smiles at him. “Have a cookie, you’ll feel better.”

“Alright Wanda, thanks.”

Wishbone curls up against him after supper. He still hasn’t told Mom about Michael. He thinks he should but he remembers how her voice went tight when he asked if he could be beautiful and he doesn’t want to hear that voice again. The air is cold as he leans against the pillar of the porch.

“Hey, Joe.”

Michael is standing hunched at the bottom of the steps with his hands stuffed into his pockets. Wishbone’s head perks up at the sound of his voice – apparently Wishbone still wants to be friends with him.

“What?”

Michael sighs. “I thought . . . well I was going to tell you today but you know,” he gives a lopsided shrug. “I’m moving at the end of November. We’re going to Boston for Dad’s work.”

“Oh.”

Michael turns away and Joe thinks he looks smaller. Wishbone thumps his head against Joe’s ribs. He sighs, puffing his breath into a white cloud in front of him, even his dog is annoyed with him. He knows he has to fix this because otherwise he’ll always regret it just like Wanda says.

“Michael wait!”

Michael turns around and his face is blank. He doesn’t look beautiful anymore.

“I’m sorry okay? I’m sorry I freaked out and I shouldn’t have and can we just go back to normal?”

“Sure Joe.” Michael’s smile is tight and small and Joe thinks he’s missing something.

Things never do go back to normal but Joe tries his hardest to make them alright. He still hangs around with Michael and still closes his eyes while Michael plays but it’s never anything happy, always sonatas and nocturnes that sound like fog shimmering in the trees. Michael isn’t melancholy but he isn’t golden beautiful anymore. Sometimes if the light hits him just right Joe can see his beauty again but it doesn’t come out when Michael knows he’s watching. Joe feels sick and sad and he doesn’t know how to fix Michael. Even Mom notices that he’s less cheerful than usual but she chalks it up to Michael moving and Joe won’t correct her when it will just make her unhappy.

He watches Michael playing three on three with the other eleventh graders. He looks beautiful then, muscle gliding under golden skin, as he jumps and twists for the shot. Joe doesn’t know how he can get that beauty to hold onto to Michael for all time like it used to before Joe found out about that.

In the end it’s a relief when Michael and his family move away. On the day they leave he pulls Joe into a hard hug and steps back.

“Take care now.”

“It’s alright you’re a fag along as you can still play basketball you can’t be bad.”

Michael’s smile is strained but he claps him on the shoulder, “Thanks Joe.”

That night he takes out the picture of Michael he keeps in his desk. Michael looks beautiful in it. Life is different, better after Michael is gone. Joe doesn’t have to keep feeling weird around Michael and pretending everything is normal. He likes it better when life isn’t complicated. When Damont calls him a fag he punches him. Mom isn’t happy about the fight but her eyes don’t go tight when Joe tells her why he had to punch Damont. Wanda just purses her lips and offers him a cookie.

Joe never forgets Michael but he never sees another man who looks as beautiful. He sometimes wonders if he broke Michael permanently, drove away his beauty or if he’s beautiful again living in big city Boston where there more of those kind of guys. When he looks in the mirror he knows he isn’t beautiful and never will be but he’s cute and good looking in an everyday sort of way and that’s enough. If he was beautiful he might be a fag and he won’t be one of those.

Years later he reads an article on Dean Forester of Forester Construction whose company’s charity work is helping to build low cost housing. Forester is tall with shaggy brown hair and the first smile Joe has seen on a man that he’d call beautiful. In the next picture his smile is warm and his arm is wrapped around Michael’s waist. The caption says Michael is mechanical engineer. In the photo Michael is golden beautiful just like the faded picture Joe keeps hidden away in his desk. He tucks the magazine picture next to it.


End file.
